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No thank you to cosmetic pesticides in Langford

Couldn’t we show some green initiative and use natural pesticides?

Yesterday, I went for a walk along Goldstream Avenue. I saw “Warning” signs up in some greenspaces near the sidewalk, so I crossed the green spaces to read them. To my dismay, they were signs warning that pesticides had been sprayed on the areas I had just crossed. I took note of the names of the pesticides and looked them up when I got home. Some pretty serious poison (glyphosate, aka Roundup) was sprayed on an area likely to be walked on by people and their pets, and the warning was far enough back that I couldn’t read it without walking through it. If a substance is so poisonous that one needs to put up a sign, it would be lovely if it were put in a position that one did not need to walk through the poison to read it.

Really, Langford? Couldn’t we show some green initiative and use natural pesticides? I know the provincial special committee said we don’t need a ban, but why not do what the Canadian Cancer Society recommends and eliminate the use of cosmetic pesticides, just on principle?

Shannon West

Langford